News

RBS Romania Weekly Report Nr. 46

According to seasonally adjusted figures, RON and foreign currency credit increased marginally in October, but monthly growth
rates were solely driven by corporate loans. We consider that the credit activity will continue to be pretty weak taking into consideration constrains from external environment.
As in previous few months, the savings activity continued to be supported by the RON denominated deposits of both retail and corporate. On the other hand, the deposits in hard currency (expressed in euro) continued to fall.
Supported by the central bank repo operation and lower pressures from the swap market the short-term money market interest rates fell last week.
Last Monday the Ministry of Finance organised a 9M T-bill auction through which it raised RON 502bn, half of the amount planned at an average yield of 6.72% and a maximum of 6.84% - a pretty high yield compared to previous similar auctions.
In contrast to other regional currencies that lost ground against the EUR last week, the RON managed to be stay pretty stable, the pair trading in a range of 4.35-4.37.
The euro zone debt crisis continued to weigh on investors’ confidence in the context of higher yields at the Spanish bond sale, poor results of a German bond auction, sovereign rating cuts in the case of Portugal and Belgium and Germany’s opposition to issue a joint euro zone bond. Thus, the EUR fell on Friday to 1.3210, the lowest level since the beginning of October.

Florentina Cozmâncă